HERE’S AN EXCERPT:

READ: JAMES 1:13-18

If watching television crime dramas is one of your habits, then you have seen it so much you almost expect it: a defendant using his or her circumstances to justify their actions. While there may certainly be legal grounds for this type of defense, today’s passage reminds us that no matter what trials God is allowing us to go through, no matter what the situation maybe, sin is never justified.

Unfortunately, too many of us excuse our sinful behavior and even worse—continue in our sinful behavior—because we feel that it’s God who has put this option in our lives or we feel that our sin is God’s reprieve for our current storm. Too many of us ignore the very real, very difficult, very deadly, spiritual battle that we are engaged in every single day. God may test us, but he never tempts us. It’s against his nature to allow, encourage, or propose sin. These temptations and pitfalls come straight from the enemy, his effects and principalities, and it’s usually during our darkest hours, when we are the most vulnerable, that the fiercest attacks come…